Re: Arguing with one of my other IT friends about bitcoin...
As for the value of Bitcoin.
- For merchants and consumers, lower txnfees
- For merchants, no chargebacks
- For consumers, nobody able to stop you from spending your money. (your bitcoin addresses cannot be frozen)
- Instantly send money across the world. (international wire-transfers take at least 2 business days)
- No possibility to create new money out of thin air (like the banks are doing now) (see the white paper (pdf) for more details)
And beyond that, the market will decide what its worth
(currently around $120 per bitcoin)
- For merchants and consumers, lower txnfees
- For merchants, no chargebacks
- For consumers, nobody able to stop you from spending your money. (your bitcoin addresses cannot be frozen)
- Instantly send money across the world. (international wire-transfers take at least 2 business days)
- No possibility to create new money out of thin air (like the banks are doing now) (see the white paper (pdf) for more details)
And beyond that, the market will decide what its worth
(currently around $120 per bitcoin)You might want to add some balance to that:
Downsides:
Loads of proven scams and thefts of BTC with no-one to complain to or any way of seeking redress.
Entire BTC universe was created and is being modified by a tiny unelected unaccountable body.
Small savings for merchants (I pay around 2% on Visa/MC in my businesses and BTC requires some fees)
No chargebacks mean I will never personally risk buying anything using BTC vs using a Visa/MCard/Amex - no price difference as a buyer, but I lose all protectionsagainst fraud or bad goods.
Price fluctuations vs Fiat mean unless you exist only in a BTC world the risk on fluctuations through the course of a transaction vastly exceeds the benefit of a small cost-saving in most cases.
Don't forget that almost all flows of BTC to date have been either speculative or gambling (SD is >50% of all BTC spend in history).